Director - Technology

Role in One Breath

You'll join the Simple Machines UK leadership team as a senior technology and people leader with deep roots in software engineering. You'll help ensure the success and growth of our existing enterprise clients while opening new relationships, shaping propositions and solutions, and helping us win significant new work.

You'll provide senior technology leadership to our clients, lead major pursuits and develop our technology people, with genuine influence over what we build, what we take to market and where Simple Machines goes next in the UK and Europe.

Help lead the UK business. Grow our strategic accounts. Win new clients. Build an exceptional technology team.

What This Role Actually Involves

This is a hands-on technology leadership role. You'll be deep in the work, helping our teams and clients successfully deliver complex software engineering programmes, while leading across architecture, clients, growth and people. You'll influence as much as direct: selling ideas, building alignment and bringing clients, teams and other business units on the journey.

Engineering and delivery leadership

• Get close to our most complex software engineering engagements and help ensure they succeed
• Lead the engineering of modern software solutions, increasingly including AI-native and agentic applications and systems
• Work directly with engineers, technical leads and architects to solve difficult technical and delivery problems
• Review architecture and engineering approaches, challenge decisions and step in where senior technical leadership is needed
• Drive strong engineering practices and ensure emerging AI and agentic solutions are engineered with enterprise-grade rigour
• Own the technical quality of our work and ensure what we deliver is something we are proud to stand behind

Architecture and technical leadership

• Shape software, solution and enterprise architecture across major client programmes
• Make pragmatic architecture decisions balancing engineering quality, enterprise constraints and delivery
• Provide technical assurance across our portfolio while remaining close to the engineering
• Stay technically current and credible with our most senior engineers and architects

Clients, influence and strategic accounts

• Help ensure the continued success and growth of our strategic enterprise accounts
• Act as a trusted technology adviser to senior client stakeholders
• Sell ideas and approaches to clients and internal stakeholders, building alignment and bringing people with you
• Work across consulting, delivery, data and AI to shape joined-up solutions and propositions
• Lead difficult technology, architecture and stakeholder conversations when senior intervention is required

Go-to-market and growth

• Open new client relationships and lead early-stage technology conversations
• Turn client problems into compelling propositions, architectures and delivery approaches
• Personally shape proposals, pitches, RFPs and major pursuits
• Ensure what we sell is technically credible, commercially compelling and deliverable
• Work across Simple Machines to assemble the capabilities and support required to win and grow work

People leadership

• Lead, mentor and develop our UK technology team
• Develop senior engineers, technical leads, principal engineers and architects through real client work
• Set a high bar for engineering craft, architecture and technical leadership
• Help attract exceptional technical talent and build a high-performance, low-ego engineering culture

Requirements

Candidate Profile we are looking for

• Software engineering: 15+ years in software and technology, with a substantial part of your career spent hands-on as a software engineer, progressing through the engineering / technical path into architecture and technology leadership
• Technology consultancy: Significant experience within a recognised technology consultancy, working directly with complex enterprise clients
• Pre-sales and sales: Personally experienced in discovery, proposition and solution shaping, proposals, RFPs, tenders, pitches and winning consulting work
• Enterprise: Significant experience designing and delivering technology within complex Tier 1 environments; banking, trading, telecommunications, wagering and insurance are particularly relevant
• Architecture: Strong software, solution and enterprise architecture capability
• Leadership: Proven senior client leadership and experience leading and developing engineers, technical leads and architects

Benefits

What's in it for you

• Join the UK leadership team and help shape our next stage of growth
• Grow Tier 1 strategic accounts while opening new client relationships
• Lead complex software, AI-native and agentic engineering programmes
• Genuine influence over our clients, people, technology and what we take to market
• Remain deep in technology while operating at Director level
• Lead and develop an exceptional senior technology team
• Build something significant without the bureaucracy of a large consultancy